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A Midrise Coming Soon to Alabama and Main St.

It could become much trickier for vandals defacing murals of presidents to remain undetected, what with all these windows: Real Estate Bisnow‘s Catie Dixon reports that Alliance Residential has closed a financing deal on Broadstone 3800, a 203-unit apartment building planned for a 1.6-acre lot just across West Alabama from the yellow-brick former campaign headquarters where Reginald James’s mural of President Obama was given a rather sloppy second coat this week. The proposed site, at 3808 Main St. on the southwest side of the intersection, is home now to a surface parking lot; it’s bound by Travis, Truxillo, and West Alabama — where, Dixon reports, $8 million is expected to be spent on street improvements. This rendering shows how light rail might be incorporated into the 6-story project; the nearest Red Line stop along Main St. is Ensemble/HCC, where shops and eateries like Natachee’s and Double Trouble have congregated.

Glad to see another parking lot dissappear, expecially in this part of Midtown. With the new MATCH (Midtown Arts & Theater Center Houston) building planned to be built a couple of blocks away, this area will definitly create a more vibrant atmosphere.

While this is of course better than a parking lot, this and almost every other new residential project looks to me like a wasted opportunity. You would think that in a city with no zoning and no design regulations, developers could come up with something a little more interesting. I thought the lack of regulations were supposed to spur innovation, after all? So why does every new project look the same as every other new project? Yes, it’s replacing a parking lot, but we are going to be stuck with this building (along with the 50 buildings that look just like it) for the next 20+ years, when something much better could have been built in its place.

They’ll have a great view of that beautiful Sears and Fiesta, too! And what Houstonian urbanite isn’t wondering: Will Sears finally do something about its military compound-esque appearance, now that the area is starting to gentrify more? Inquiring minds want to know.